Oh Diana! And she liked a Sunny Beach too

She was more Barbados than Bulgaria but Oh Diana, you did like a Sunny Beach.

And what does this possibly have to do with TUI?

And their Black Friday savings of €250 per booking, running from yesterday (my birthday, and thank you) with free amends on Black Friday bookings.

The BLK100 will save you €100 when you spend €1,000, BLK175 €175 when you fork out €2,500 and BLK259 for a spend of €3,500.

Great Aunt Bulgaria

Well, Bulgaria was where we, as a family, took refuge from the cloying, smothering public grief for Princess Diana back in 1997.

Little did we know when we booked our TUI holiday earlier in the summer, and every year then, we’d be leaving behind us a country in an emotional breakdown.

It could, of course, been any sunspot that gave us respite.

But this being Eastern Europe and only a few years after the Iron Curtain there was a sense that She wasn’t the saint here that she was in the West.

Socialistites

They had problems of their own trying to develop a more capitalist society out of state-controlled Socialism.

And it was all too evident on the Black Sea beaches where Russian writing was scrolled on the changing room doors.

And in the main square in Bulgaria’s second city, Varna,, where a customer in front of us in the bank handed over his gun on entry.

While outside old Eastern European women in shawls, baggy jumpers, grey skirts and brown shoes lined the square.

Scales of justice

All with weighing scales in front of them. All of which made me wonder how the old women in the middle ever made a living.

And why this was even a thing.

Money was tight, obviously, and the driver who took us to Sebastopol waited there all day to collect us.

And turned up at our hotel the next day early asking if he could take us back.

But while it was dear for the locals on Bulgarian wages it was great value for tourists.

Save for another day

And one British couple we met had saved so much on their previous Bulgarian holiday that year they had come back that September for more.

We returned, of course, to a Britain grieving vicariously for an idol most had never met.

Not Diana’s fault but an excess of self-indulgence all the same and one well captured in the latest Netflix series of The Crown.

Diana days

Diana’s death and funeral were times we, all of us who lived through them, can remember specifically where we were.

And should you feel the need to jump ship and get out from new madness in the UK then Bulgaria is still a haven and great value.

And particularly with TUI who are offering seven nights all-inclusive on July 5 at the 4* Aqua Hotel Nevis, Sunny Beach.

It’s a deal

Dublin to Bulgaria from 2+1 €2339, 2+2 €3199 (both prices include a free child place).

All part of my old friends‘ Black Friday package of deals for 2021 to signal next year’s bounce back.

Worth weighting for!